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Opinion

The right to fight

The acquittal of 28 Greenpeace protesters who destroyed an experimental maize crop has given the green movement a timely boost in the wake of the success of the oil blockades, writes environment editor Joanna Griffiths

Today, when Lord Melchett and 27 Greenpeace protesters were cleared of causing criminal damage by wrecking an experimental crop of genetically modifed maize in Norfolk, it was a vital moment for green activists.

The ruling is timely - it comes in the aftermath of the abject failure of the green movement to react during the fuel crisis.

For the whole of last week, as protesters rallied and drivers complained of rising petrol prices (which have not risen since spring, but that did not stop anyone from spitting bile) environmentalists appeared cowed and silent.

This week, their own brand of protest was upheld by Norwich crown court.

While the people on the oil blockades claimed their protests were peaceful, they disrupted emergency services and schools and inconvenienced millions.

But they, and the vast majority of the public who supported their case, claimed that they had a democratic right to object to fuel taxes.

This democratic right they uphold is the right to expect no sacrifices for the future of the planet, merely to accelerate its descent into global warming and destructive freak weather conditions.

The Melchett verdict proves there is another sort of democratic right - the right to act destructively, if such actions prevent the greater destruction of the environment.

Norwich crown court decided that the rights of a farmer and the rights of a government are less significant than the rights of individuals to protest against the disruption of the balance of nature.

Whether the jury agreed with the actions of Lord Melchett and his followers is not known, but they supported the spirit in which the demonstration was carried out.

This is an extraordinary decision, which offers a substantial incentive for further field invasions and protests against experimental crop sites.

Under government plans, 25 fields are to be planted with trial crops of maize and oilseed rape, and 30 more with either sugar or fodder beet by the end of this year.

Herbicide resistant GM crops will be planted in one part of the sites and non-GM crops will be planted in the remaining acres. There will be more farm trials for the next two years, with results to be evaluated in 2003.

Two of the 31 farms selected for trials have already decided not to participate in the trials. After today's decision other farmers may think carefully about conducting GM tests on their land.

Some say the trials need to take place in order to guarantee the safety of the crops. But whether GM food can be proven 'safe' or not, few consumers want to buy it and, consequently, few supermarkets want to stock it.

The government can hardly expect the nation to support the testing of crops which can serve little function in the food production of the country. It seems that only bully tactics and duplicitousness will persuade people to consume GM.

The US government, supporting the interests of multinational GM-producing companies such as Monsanto, has threatened sanctions on European Union exports if EU supermarkets label GM foods as GM foods.

This only points up just how aware the US government is of public hostility towards genetically modified food. Only by naming GM products as "not GM" will people be tricked into buying it.

Whether the decision in Norwich today is a beginning of a new acknowledgment by the law of the rights of the land remains to be seen.

For years, the Deep Ecology movement, founded by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, has argued that the continuation of the life of the earth is more important than the concerns of any individual species, even humanity.

The Norwich crown court ruling could lead the law towards reform which recognises this. Nature, having no means to petition barristers and governments, might be more frequently perceived as a passive and endangered entity, to be protected from the more rigorous attempts of humans to obliterate it.

While people continue to fight for their prerogative to queue at garages and force the last drops of fuel into overflowing tanks, no one can be too concerned about the damage we are wilfully, ignorantly inflicting upon the planet.

This ruling opens up a new world for environmentalists, in which to protesting on green issues does not mean being hurled into a subculture, hounded by the police and disdained by the courts.

Today's decision also offers a brief, welcome respite from the self-interested protesting about a commodity that causes global destruction.